The Family Chin-up Challenge

My boys and I are starting this challenge – please feel free to participate and share your results as well (and please feel free to taunt and talk smack – within reason; this is the family Chin-up challenge).

This is a training volume test. The goal is to see who can do the most chin-ups between now (call it May 1st 2014) and July 31st 2014 – that’s 3 months of glorious chin-up action. To be clear, this is not the most at one time; it’s the most done cumulatively between those dates.

Rules:

If you are heavier and/or subtly out of shape, you can initially do banded-assisted chins using the equation 3 banded chins = 1 chin for the contest

Chins should be dead-hang or as close as your elbows will allow; plus chin over the bar (i.e. all the way up and all the way down) – I’ll use the old adage here – you’re only cheating yourself if you don’t perform the reps correctly

No kipping chins allowed; we’re looking to strengthen the back in this instance; we’re not performing a total-body workout

Any grip (overhand, underhand, or neutral) is accepted

Additional Rules Specific to my Situation (just sharing to share)

I am +100 chins out of the gate (my oldest son is giving me the 100 for our contest) – I’m not happy about this but candidly, I need them

My middle son is +75 out of the gate (my oldest son is giving him the 75)

We are using the “honor system” – you can jump on the bar whenever you like and record your chins – any day or night

I am creating a master sheet to report the progress

For full disclosure; we’ve made some smallish side bets to sweeten the deal

Why chins?

In my case for three reasons:

I don’t do enough back work and I need the additional incentive/motivation

I believe it’s really hard to overtrain the back, so this format of training should not interfere with other training modalities

With regard specifically to my sons; I believe chins are a great upper-body exercise for athletes